Today we look at a very simple piece, but one that
is very important to the Vong. Statwise for a
commander at 21pts, the shaper actually has very
good stats. 50HP means it will take the extra
20DAM hit to go down. The DEF is solid for the
cost and purpose, and a +5 is okay since you really
do not want to attack with this piece anyway.
20DAM is very good.
Of course being a Vong, force immunity is base, and
she is a melee character. No biggie, but its
this new Shaper +10 ability that is fantastic to the
Vong. What this does is give +10DAM not to the
total damage, but to the base stat. What is
the difference? Simple. Per the
definition, it makes Vong a Base 20 figures, meaning
that when a Vong crits they will do 40 DAM instead
of 30, which is nice. The downside is that the
shaper has to be within 6 to get the effect off, but
the huge plus is that this is an ability instead of
a CE, which means that it cant be disrupted.
Its a fine balance between when to move her up into
the fight. IF you move her too early, she will
get picked off. Move her too late and your
Vong wont get her full effect. Either way, she
is practically a must for Vong at this point.
100pts: I dont think Vong can do enough damage here
to make a difference. I could be wrong, but i
dont think they can live long enough to stand up to
Bane and Vader. She is a bit too expensive
here.
150/200pts: As i said she is a MUST here unless
running super stealth. Any Vong with stealth
will not have a good enough attack value to hit when
attacking, but with Jedi Hunters and Lah, she is a
killer. You can Run Nom to give her super
stealth, but that can be a bit of over kill.
Time her movements and possibly bring in a human
bodyguard to help her out, and she will be a great
piece if you want to play the Vong.
SA:
Melee
Force Immunity
Shaper +10 (Vong Allies within 6 squares get +10
Damage. This bonus damage is multiplied in
critical hits.)
Vong fans everywhere rejoice and say hello to the
little guy who makes this faction actually
competitive outside of a Nom Anor squad. For
21 pts the stats are pretty decent for a "command"
piece. Defence and attack are low, typical of
vong, but 50 HP is decent and we now have the first
20 Damage Vong piece. But wait, there's more!
It's not enough that the shaper has 20 base damage.
He(She?)'s also going to give it to all his allies
within six squares as well! That means
Warmaster too, who can now actually deal damage as
well as take it.
The interesting thing about this ability is that
it's the only damage boosting effect in the game
that actually applies to critical hits. In
other words, if a Vong Warrior crits with a shaper
nearby, he will hit for 40 ([10+10]*2) instead of
the typical 30 ([10*2]+10). The Shaper ability in
conjunction with the piece we'll be reviewing Friday
has truly made Vong a viable option these days,
especially with all the new force users and powers
running around in today's game.
100pts 3/5: It can be tough to squeeze the
shaper in at 100 and even tougher to keep him safe.
Even with the shaper, Vong still have trouble in
this format.
150 and 200pts 5/5: If you're running Vong
(and NOT playing a Nom Bomb,) you're running a
shaper in either of these formats. The only
real question is "how do I keep him safe?"
Once the shaper drops, it's often ballgame.
The best option out there right now is to run Nom
and Ooglith the shaper (giving him stealth and
therefore superstealth.) When I played him, I
simply ran a bodyguard with the Shaper and tried to
keep him out of LOS. No matter what you do
though, keeping the shaper alive is the name of the
game.
